I wasn’t going to write about this, but it was such a juicy tidbit, I just had to pass it along. So I looked at all of my colleagues, who begged me to keep it quiet, I looked them straight in the eye and told them, frankly, to buzz off. This is an exceedingly valuable tip for small businesses, I just couldn’t in good conscience keep it a secret.
Peter Drucker declared, in one of the most important chapters of his landmark volume The Effective Executive:
Effective executives know that time is the limiting factor. The output limits of any process are set by the scarcest resource. In the process we call “accomplishment,” this is time.
Time is also a unique resource. Of the other major resources, money is actually quite plentiful. We long ago should have learned that it is the demand for capital, rather than the supply thereof, which sets the limit to economic growth and activity. People–the third limiting resource–one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. But one cannot rent, hire, buy, or otherwise obtain more time.
The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it and no marginal utility curve for it. Moreover, time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever and will never come back. Time is, therefore, always in exceedingly short supply.
This fact of more demand for time than the limited supply available, it’s a fact of life for us small businessmen. There’s always too much to do and too little time. Maybe you too have said, as I often do: “I wish there were some way I could find more time!”
But now we have the answer to Peter Drucker! Yes, an ingenious manager has now figured out the secret to overcoming our limited supply of time. And you’ll never believe it. It’s so simple. When you hear what the answer is, you’re going to freak, it’s just so simple!
To find out what it’s about, just click here to read all about this exciting new technique, on Star C’s blog, Wednesday’s Off.
-TimK
P.S. Yes, this is a joke.
P.P.S. If you want the real secret of how to overcome the fact of limited time, see Peter Drucker’s timeless classic The Effective Executive.